


Every You and Every Me

by Miss_Deyora_Ash



Series: The Truth Lies In Between [1]
Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23739109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Deyora_Ash/pseuds/Miss_Deyora_Ash
Summary: Their first US tour - Robert feels hopelessly lost and maybe a bit manipulated too. At least Bonzo's there to take care of him.
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Pamela Des Barres (mentioned), Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
Series: The Truth Lies In Between [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729192
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	Every You and Every Me

**Author's Note:**

> TW: There's a suggestion of dubious consent or no consent depending on how you view the situation. 
> 
> The title comes from the song Every You Every Me by Placebo.

Robert has never seen someone quite as beautiful as Jimmy. It’s ridiculous, stupid, absolutely impossible. He has some of the most gorgeous girls in the world throwing themselves at his feet, for god’s sake! Flower children, who are all for free love and who make it sting a bit and make it _so good_.

But he was talking about Jimmy, not his tour lovers. Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy. He feels like crying again, but instead he takes another drag of his cigarette. He’s trying to get drunk enough to forget why he’s feeling awful. It’s not going well, because Bonzo’s sitting next to him comparatively sober keeping the alcohol away. Maybe cause Robert’s a fucking featherweight, as he likes to say, but more probably because he has sensed his mood and doesn’t want to leave him alone to drink his sorrows away.

Jimmy’s off god knows where. Probably having tantric sex with some fourteen year old who claims she’s eighteen. Which Jimmy undoubtedly knows, but he won’t care. He likes his partners innocent. (Something Robert knows all too well.)

He sighs and leans his head back so any tears that appear dry before they roll down his cheeks. Carelessly throws the cig down on the ground and grabs the bottle of whiskey from Bonzo. He wishes it was beer instead. Not as good to get drunk on, but at least it doesn’t smell like _fucking_ Jimmy _fucking_ Page.

Bonzo is looking at him now. Oh god no. “Mate, your moping is really getting too much. Just tell me what’s going on already. Did some bird reject you?” That really deserves a bitter laugh, but Robert doesn’t have the energy for it. The lack of reaction does not appease Bonzo. He actually seems a bit worried now. “Do I need to go punch someone?”

He hates Bonzo’s tendency to think violence is the first solution to everything. Then he imagines Jimmy with a black eye lying dazed on the ground, and hates himself for the thrill he feels at that thought. Fuck, Jimmy would probably get off on it too. The freak.

“Shit, Robert, what’s wrong?” Oh. He’s crying. And not the pretty, dramatic crying he’ll indulge in sometimes when pouts don’t get him what he wants. These are honest, ugly sobs that make his shoulders shake and his nose run. The last time he cried like this was because of Jimmy too, and the time before that he was a sixteen year old kid. Bonzo wraps an arm around him, holds him a bit helplessly.

Robert shakes his head, because obviously he can’t tell Bonzo. The drummer would do something stupid, like punch Jimmy.

(Or he would tell him it’s his own fault, and that any real man wouldn’t have gotten into this situation.

Or he would curse at Robert, and hit him, and call him disgusting. Tell him to leave and never come back.)

He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. It’s not very effective, because new tears keep spilling out. The thing is, he wishes he could blame Jimmy and be done with it. That he could say Jimmy was an awful person and used him ( _abused_ him?) and that he was just a victim. But Robert is not a liar.

“Robert, please just tell me,” Bonzo says, sounding almost desperate. “Whatever it is, I can help you.”

It’s just too much. He’s only twenty, for god’s sake. He feels so fucking alone. He hasn’t felt this lost since he left home, and at least he had Maureen and Shirley then. He needs someone to tell him what to do. And Jimmy isn’t here. And he can’t ask Jimmy about this.

So he takes a deep breath, takes comfort in Bonzo’s strong arm still wrapped around his shoulders. “You’ll hate me,” he mutters, brushes a damp strand of hair out of his face. He must look awful. Or maybe he only looks broken.

Bonzo scoffs. “That’s impossible.” He likes how blunt Bonzo is about these things. He hopes he’s telling the truth though.

Robert fidgets with one of his bracelets, braces himself for the unavoidable blow. “What would you do if I were, uhm…”

“If you were what? Spit it out mate, we don’t have all day.” He tries to sound gruff, but Robert hears the worry in his voice. So he does as Bonzo says.

“What if I was in love with a bloke?”

It feels like ages until Bonzo replies, and Robert thinks he might die. Then Bonzo laughs, hearty and loud and just like he always does. “That’s all? I thought you were gonna tell me you’d murdered someone or somethin’.”

“You don’t care?” Robert asks, thinking this might be the one reaction he had not anticipated.

Bonzo laughs again, and pats him on the shoulder. “Mate, I figured you were into blokes when I first saw you on stage wearing girl clothes. I mean, it’s a bit weird, but as long as you don’t hurt anyone I don’t care.” Robert feels like fucking floating. Everything’s still fucked up, but it’s less fucked up. Bonzo doesn’t _care_. Bonzo didn’t punch him or called him a poofter or told him to leave.

Bonzo, apparently, loves him more than his own parents, and that’s a bit sobering. But a bit nice as well, maybe. Maybe it means something. (Maybe it means he has a family again?)

However, of course the problem isn’t that he’s in love with a man. The problem is with who that man is, and that he does love him back. Or maybe not love. ‘Wants to fuck him as well’ would be the best way to describe it, even if that makes Robert feel dirty and awful.

Well, he’s on a roll now. Might as well admit everything, especially since Bonzo hasn’t gotten pissed off at him yet. “I’m not, well, gay. There’s just one.”

“Please don’t start fawning over some bloke now. I don’t care. I told you this when you couldn’t shut up about Maureen.” This is why Robert loves Bonzo. He moves on so quickly. He doesn’t cling to things or hold grudges like certain other people are prone to. Like Jimmy. Like Robert himself.

“I’m not fawning,” he defends himself. Which he isn’t, and he’s not planning to, because no matter how beautiful Jimmy is he’s feeling quite awful about him currently. “It’s Jimmy.”

Bonzo does an amazing double take that almost makes Robert laugh. “You’re in love with Page? But he’s an arsehole!”

“Well that would be the problem, now wouldn’t it?” Robert says sourly. He fidgets with the bracelet again, because he’s pretty sure he’ll start crying again if he does nothing. No point in twisting around the point any longer. Bonzo doesn’t care, he won’t start hating him now. Probably. “And also, I slept with him.” He fails miserably at sounding apathetic.

“Did the fucker break your heart? I’ll break his fucking fingers,” Bonzo growls, and in any other situation Robert would laugh at that. Then again, in any other situation Robert would laugh at most things.

He’d almost been ready to give up when he first met Jimmy Page. Give up on music, maybe give up on life altogether. It hadn’t exactly been a success for him, after all. But then the dark haired guitarist came into his life like some magic hurricane, intertwining himself into every note of Robert’s soul. When they played together the first time Robert thought he’d reached heaven. And soon after when their lips touched he realized heaven was much too pure to ever describe them together.

When he first got the telegrams about joining the Yardbirds he thought someone was playing an awful prank on him. It wouldn’t be the first time. That theory was quickly disproven when at some tiny gig, in Birmingham of all places, he opened the door for a massive man who introduced himself as Peter Grant. With him was Chris Deja, who Robert vaguely recognized from his Yardbird’s records, and the most beautiful man Robert had ever seen. Jimmy had taken his hand gently, callouses scratching over his palm, and introduced himself in a nasal voice that somehow fit him perfectly. And Robert was swept away.

He barely remembered the performance, but he knew he’d never sung the blues with such passion before. And afterwards Jimmy took him out back, shared a cigarette with him, and told him to come to his house the next day. To stay for a while. Of course he went.

The first night Jimmy had taken him out on the water with his little motorboat, to some island that made Robert feel like he was in a Tolkien novel. They sat together on the shore, sharing beer and weed. Jimmy had scolded him for smoking, told him he needed to take care of his voice, but then he stole the cigarette and took a drag as well. The hypocrite. And when the joint was burned out and the beers drunk and Robert felt lightheaded and happy Jimmy had pressed him into the ground and kissed him senseless.

He knew he liked men, he knew he liked Jimmy. But he’d never done anything like that before. Had always been too scared.

Jimmy was not. Jimmy just took and took and gave and did what he wanted. Jimmy had traveled the world, Jimmy had been to America. Jimmy had been with men before, he divulged. (“But they were nothing like you. You’re special, you’re absolutely amazing. Beautiful. Oh, Robert, I must be in love with you already.”)

Robert had swallowed the lines like a hungry baby bird. Let Jimmy take him back to the house and press him into silk sheets. He’d traced Jimmy’s chest and then shyly taken off his clothes. (“Oh, Robert, you’re absolutely beautiful. I can’t wait any longer. You must let me, _please_ , _Robert_.”) He’d let Jimmy open him up and then slide inside, and it was all too much but a bit amazing as well. He had no clue what to do, was too used to taken the lead in any encounter. But Jimmy had been so sweet. He’d cleaned him up afterwards, held him throughout the night, made him breakfast the next morning. He’d given him sweet kisses, and he hadn’t gone any further again until Robert had initiated it.

(But Jimmy had never told him he could say no. Jimmy never told him he could stop them halfway through. Jimmy never said that he didn’t have to do something if he didn’t want to. Jimmy didn’t explain that this was not a condition for him being in the band. Jimmy had never done that.)

Robert shakes his head softly, blond curls swishing about his face. How could he explain this to Bonzo? That Robert hadn’t wanted all of it, but that Jimmy could not have known? Except that maybe he should have known? That all of that maybe still wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t heard Jimmy use those exact same lines he used on him on _fucking ‘_ Miss Pamela’? “He didn’t. It’ll be alright.”

“Right.” Bonzo doesn’t believe him, and why should he? Robert hardly believes it himself. He might yell at Pagey tomorrow. Or fuck up a vocal to make Pagey yell at him. Initiate a nice fight that gives him an excuse to scream all those accusations at the guitarist. Maybe he’ll punch him even. He snorts at the thought of the two of them fighting. It would be like two girls, pulling at each other’s hair and ineffectively trying to slap the other. Eventually Robert would give in, let Pagey pin him to the ground with arms that are much stronger than their skinny physique suggests.

And then Pagey will explain to him that, yes, he was just like the girls at first. But he isn’t anymore. That he truly cares for him, and that if one of them were a girl they would undoubtedly be married already. That Robert is fully special and wholly different, and the best singer Jimmy could have asked for. He will cry and apologize for making Robert feel like he had to do anything, because _of course_ he hadn’t. Pagey would never want that. _Never, god no._

“I just felt a bit jealous,” Robert says, forces a self-deprecating laugh. “Which is stupid, considering, well.” He waves his hand in a way that is supposed to imply all the girls he’d made love to on this tour. (But none of them had been anything like Pagey.)

Bonzo looks at him, evaluating whether to believe him or not. “As long as you’re okay. But tell me if I need to beat up our guitarist. After all, somebody needs to take care of ya.” He hugs Robert, one of those manly hugs that ends with pats on the back that make him cough his lungs out. That’s okay though. He thinks he likes having someone who will take care of him.

(God knows he will not. He, after all, is running after the one person capable of hurting him most. But that’s what love is, right?

Right.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading everyone! So, I want to continue this, probably through more oneshots in the same timeline. Would you guys even be interested in that? And if so, would you prefer Jimmy to be manipulating Robert on purpose, or more in an accidental type way?  
> I haven't quite decided yet what I would like to write. It's gonna be a bit of a darker story either way though.
> 
> Pamela Des Barres was a groupie who had an affair with Jimmy in 1969. She's written about this quite extensively, and some excerpts can be found in articles online. She was quite thoroughly seduced, among other through the use of 'lines', if she is to be believed at least. That of course is where I got my inspiration for Jimmy using similar lines on Robert.  
> I think Robert was never quite as naive as I write him here, but oh well.


End file.
